


Demarcation

by musiclily88



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Louis Tomlinson - Freeform, M/M, Song Based, breakup ish, post breakup, sort of angsty, walls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:35:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23905519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiclily88/pseuds/musiclily88
Summary: Walls
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 12
Kudos: 25
Collections: Walls Fic Fest





	Demarcation

Louis wakes up alone, and that’s sobering in and of itself. The hangover hits secondary once he opens his eyes, looking at the cupboard full of clothes he’ll never wear again, even though he and Harry used to share them.

They used to share a lot of things, really, dark nights and early mornings, crap cups of tea and a too-small duvet—secret glances in front of millions and millions of people. 

They used to share everything.

He regrets the tequila, because it’s what Harry always drank when he wanted to fuck, and he regrets mixing it with vodka afterwards, even though he was just trying to make himself feel good. He sort of regrets the beers, but not really, because they were what sent him to bed for real.

Tequila makes him horny, and vodka makes him manic. Beer sends him crashing to the floor.

He wakes up alone, and he goes back to bed alone, framing up walls around himself, assuming they’ll never come down.

:

The thing is, the initial walls came down early.

Maybe Louis was too eager, and Harry was definitely enthusiastic as the day was long. It got so comical that they laughed about it while Harry moved Louis’ fringe off his forehead, while Louis tucked Harry’s hair behind his ear.

“You’re beautiful.”

_We’ve discussed it._

Nothing hurts quite like hurting the one you love, that’s true. But also, nothing hurts quite like your love hurting you.

:

Louis wants to take the higher ground, wants to stand taller than all the walls around him, but he feels punched in the throat by life.

He kips for three days, only stumbling awake to piss, and still he wakes up alone.

:

Nothing hurts like hating who you love, or someone you loved, or someone who loved you.

Nothing hurts like hurting the one you love in precisely the way they hurt you.

:

Louis wakes up alone again, naturally, flailing slightly, smacking his hand against the wall at the head of his bed. 

Cursing, he sucks at his knuckle, tumbling into the kitchen to get water, wanting to topple back into bed immediately. He sucks down two pint glasses of water and stumbles towards his room.

Sighing, he yanks on a grey jumper that was maybe once his, and he goes back to sleep.

He realizes the next day that it wasn’t his, but now it is.

:

He feels like it’s betrayal, sitting down at the piano to rake through the mud and muck, the bittersweetness of it all, going through the hopeful beauty and the _thank-yous._

Going through the _oh, you?_ of it all.

Going through the _because._

Because he thought someone was worth it, and sometimes people are wrong.

:

For every question _why?_ there was almost always another question.

And it was usually _are you mine?_

And sometimes, the answer was _no._

So, sometimes, he hurt everyone when he found out he was also getting hurt.

:

For being so hard, walls are easy. Walls can go up young and without warning, sometimes in one abrupt leaving in the middle of the night, the kind that left Louis and his mum reeling and alone together. That first small wall was built of rage and confusion.

Then came the band and the walls he had to build to keep out the hatred and the noise and the screaming. Those walls were bigger, more fortified, yet also permeable. They let in more screaming than he would’ve liked, but also enough to sustain him. The yelling and the screaming feed into the mania, sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way.

They got past the wall enough for him to find some things—to find himself, to find his voice, to find the ways he was and wasn’t valued. 

He found someone to love, sure, but for the whole time, his back was against the wall.

::

It’s the grief that rocks him, really, it’s the grief that threatens his walls just as much as it makes him build them up.

First, it’s Harry, because of course it’s Harry, why wouldn’t it be Harry?

Because Harry leaves.

He leaves, almost like it’s nothing, but it’s also not nothing, because they’ve gone through the thick of it, they’ve gone through the fires, they’ve walked through the desert, haven’t they?

Haven’t they dealt with the death of everything, in small ways, in tiny pin-pricks? They dealt with death by water-drops to the face, by the deluge Harry gave to fans during every concert from his water-bottle, spitting like a fountain. They dealt with death by the way Louis himself drank water-not-water onstage and pretended everything was fine, pretended everything was a laugh. They’ve dealt with death in comments and fan-mail, in stalkers and paps. But really. But then. 

What were they meant to do afterwards?

Harry left, for reasons perhaps very _other._ Or perhaps not. Perhaps he left for the exact reason real people do.

Because, maybe, Louis isn’t worth sticking around for.

::

Louis thought maybe that Harry leaving was death, but it wasn’t.

Because there’s smoke but there’s sunlight, there’s clarity in the in-between of such a thing, because a break-up is just a break-up. A split is just a split, no matter the circumstances, right?

And then everything collapsed.

:

His mum collapsed.

His sister collapsed.

He collapsed.

::

The walls went high.

He knew how to succumb, as he was no fool. He knew how to turn cold.

:

He taught himself how to turn warm again, thawing out of the best way he could.

He woke up alone.

:

He knows that no amount of words will ever be enough, and he doesn’t even want to try, not really, not at this point, even though Harry was once his _because_ but of everything, which is bittersweet of necessity.

At the same time, waking up alone is so, so hard.

There’s no higher ground when there’s no one around, not really—there’s just other people’s clothes and the lyrics he writes to eke out the bitterness, trying to feel without piercing someone with an arrow. This isn’t a competition, not really, but it feels combative, and he feels especially bad when his calls go unanswered.

::

He’s used to taking the punches that people throw, but he’s not used to accolades. Somehow, he’s not used to _not_ fucking up, even given the evidence, even given the everything of it all.

He continues to wake up alone.

:

High walls come up short, of course, and then they crumble. Of course they do. Why wouldn’t they?

:

He’s not used to the kind of walls that keep him safe, never has been, but he’s growing used to kindness and shy smiles and a little bit of tenderness thrown his way.

More than that, he’s sending tenderness to others, telling them to love themselves, love others, love kindly, love strangely.

And, sometimes, he’s reminding himself of the same.

:

Harry calls him seven days later.

He knows, because he’s counted, not that Harry hasn’t.

They both have.

They both have a cupboard of each other’s clothes, after all.

::

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“There’s nothing quite like waking up to the sound of your voice.”

And Louis tries to smile, because that sounds like a compliment. But nothing’s woken him up so starkly as waking up alone. Not really.

Not really.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm very sorry.  
> I meant for this to have a happy ending.  
> People happen, life happens, stuff happens.  
> Regardless, this song is amazing.


End file.
